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Precision ICBMs are not low tech. They're 1-3M$ a pop. Not sure if that's what you were trying to say (that arrow/david sling/iron dome have been saturated to s

by YZF 2y ago

Precision ICBMs are not low tech. They're 1-3M$ a pop. Not sure if that's what you were trying to say (that arrow/david sling/iron dome have been saturated to some large advantage by Iran). Defense against ICBMs attack definitely matters, even if they can be saturated it's not that easy, you need launchers and you need to keep them capable of launching. The ICBM defense isn't just about knocking some of those missiles (and you can selectively do that by priority) it's also about early warning. The combination of these capabilities makes a huge difference. Germany launched 1400 V2 1-ton warhead ICBMs on London and that didn't stop the British fighting. Both in Israel and in Ukraine those missiles and UAVs are not really a huge factor. Definitely combined arms is where it's at today, and today attack helicopters have a huge role to play within that scenario, what the future looks like with more sophisticated autonomous machines is hard to predict. Maybe an autonomous bi-pedal robot combined with a UAV combined with an autonomous tank combined with an autonomous jet...

thenaturalist 2y ago
I implied "low tech" insofar as that ICBMs are not really "autonomous" or a dynamic device. They're launched, they fly, but at some point close to reaching terminal phase, all they do is fall along a pre-calculated trajectory. Case in point with regards to Iran, a combination of factors played a role in Israel's response: They knew the launch locations, times and most likely targets. Hence were able to move out any valuable assets of targeted bases well ahead of time and, had they wanted to, could have even pre-emptively striked the launchers. The latter again, requiring combined arms and from what I've seen about military ops, there are so many factors to pay attention to with sometimes such little time windows calculated by mission planners, that I don't see all that going full on autonomously for still some time to come. Check out this video on the 2017/18 US/ coalition response to the Syrian regime perpetrating gas attacks against civilians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnbkmi3Iieo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnbkmi3Iieo The nominal number of assets involved, the number of types of naval and aerial assets involved, the highly detailed operation plan with a short window for payload launch resulting in a 2 minute window of said payloads reaching their targets simultaneously: That is such a dynamic and complex situation that the reliability required by each component in such a calculation is high. That's why all of the humans operating these assets receive years of training. Autonomous vehicles will have support roles or be optimized for high risk or standard, low-complexity scenarios, but I don't see them making huge strides to replace people in a big way in high-complexity, high-impact ops.

by YZF 2y ago

thenaturalist 2y ago

I implied "low tech" insofar as that ICBMs are not really "autonomous" or a dynamic device. They're launched, they fly, but at some point close to reaching terminal phase, all they do is fall along a pre-calculated trajectory. Case in point with regards to Iran, a combination of factors played a role in Israel's response: They knew the launch locations, times and most likely targets. Hence were able to move out any valuable assets of targeted bases well ahead of time and, had they wanted to, could have even pre-emptively striked the launchers. The latter again, requiring combined arms and from what I've seen about military ops, there are so many factors to pay attention to with sometimes such little time windows calculated by mission planners, that I don't see all that going full on autonomously for still some time to come. Check out this video on the 2017/18 US/ coalition response to the Syrian regime perpetrating gas attacks against civilians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnbkmi3Iieo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnbkmi3Iieo The nominal number of assets involved, the number of types of naval and aerial assets involved, the highly detailed operation plan with a short window for payload launch resulting in a 2 minute window of said payloads reaching their targets simultaneously: That is such a dynamic and complex situation that the reliability required by each component in such a calculation is high. That's why all of the humans operating these assets receive years of training. Autonomous vehicles will have support roles or be optimized for high risk or standard, low-complexity scenarios, but I don't see them making huge strides to replace people in a big way in high-complexity, high-impact ops.